COMMENTARY : This Greek Says He’s Not Done

Jimmy Snyder says the phone is starting to ring again, five or six calls just last week from people, he said, “who probably thought I was dead. For a while there, that’s how I felt. But I’m making a comeback.”

The man known simply as “The Greek” to a generation of American sports fans was back in the news after his attorneys filed a $10 million lawsuit with the New York State Supreme Court, alleging that CBS had, in 1988, “seized upon a non-work-related incident as a pretext for firing him because of his age.” As a member of AFTRA, the union representing on-air talent, The Greek, now 73, also has requested an arbitration hearing on a $10 million claim against a number of executives and employees at CBS and WRC-TV-4 in Washington.

That so-called “non-work related incident” occurred at Duke Zeibert’s restaurant in January 1988. The Greek was in town for a Redskins playoff game when he put down his knife and fork over what will go down as the most expensive lunch in Washington history to grant an interview to Ed Hotaling, a WRC reporter.

Hotaling was looking for celebrity comments on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s birthday. When the camera rolled, what he got was a rambling, crude dissertation on the superiority of the black athlete from Professor Snyder, a graduate of the school of hard knocks from Steubenville, Ohio.

Then The Greek tried to make a joke. “If they take over coaching, like everyone wants them to, there’s not going to be anything left for white people.”

Dumb, just plain dumb from a man with a ninth-grade education who never pretended to be anything more than what he was, a street hustler with an uncanny knack for self-promotion and making a buck, and a bet. He had become America’s sports oddsmaker, a one-of-a-kind “personality” and a 13-year network veteran who helped CBS ride to the top of the ratings with its “The NFL Today” pregame show.

His comments caused an immediate uproar and within days, The Greek was history, fired from a job that defined his very existence and helped him earn over $800,000 a year. CBS, in a statement, described his comments as “reprehensible” -- an appropriate description for what he said, as well as the network’s subsequent treatment of a longtime employee based on The Greek’s version of what happened next.

Snyder says that since the day he was dismissed, he has never heard from his former employers. “I never got a letter telling me why they had done this. No one ever called to say thanks for all the good years, people I’d worked with for 13 years. It was like a I fell off the face of the earth.”

CBS, through spokeswoman Susan Kerr, said it would have no comment on Synder’s remarks or on his lawsuit, which she described as “completely without merit ... completely dismissable. It doesn’t deserve a comment.”

The Greek still insists he said nothing wrong. In its submission of the facts of the case to the arbitrator, Snyder’s attorneys wrote: “There is absolutely no evidence of racial animus in Mr. Synder’s comments. ... To the extent that anything Mr. Snyder said may have been controversial, it was a perhaps inartful explanation of legitimate physiological differences between races, amply supported by scientific data, historical studies and medical opinion.”

Even someone named by Snyder in his arbitration case is sympathetic to The Greek’s plight.

“He added so much to the show,” ABC announcer Brent Musburger, himself let go by CBS in a contract dispute last March, said in an interview in January. “I’ve been around him a few times, and he’s bitter. He has a couple of good reasons to be bitter. ... What he said was not so much reprehensible as it was ignorant and dumb. ... I think other things were at play over his being fired. He’d burned some bridges. I think it may have been more political than that incident.”

Snyder said that over the last few years of his employment he was constantly feuding with Ted Shaker, the producer of “The NFL Today” and executive producer for CBS Sports. “I’m sure Shaker was looking to shake me,” Snyder said. “Hell, he always used to tell me I was responsible for putting the addition on to his house.” Shaker, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

Still, these days, the Greek is just happy to be alive. A week after his dismissal, he developed chest pains, then suffered a heart attack within the month. He’s been treated for angina, chicken pox and a painful case of shingles, though his physical condition has improved recently to the point where is a regular again at Gulfstream Park in Florida, watching horses and talking about finding a job.

“Hell, ever since this thing happened I’ve been sick,” he said. “I couldn’t work, and no one was asking me. I’ve been out of a job for three years. Right now, I’ll do anything. I need the money. I guess the lawsuit reminded people I’m still alive. Hey, I’m not done yet.”